


real or not real

by zanykingmentality



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mild Spoilers, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 14:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16996713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanykingmentality/pseuds/zanykingmentality
Summary: Robin saw too much in the in-between. Henry, in all his unstable ingenuity, brings her back each time.





	real or not real

**Author's Note:**

> this is a combination of many things. first: it draws directly from the end of the third book in the hunger games trilogy, _mockingjay_. second: it's a vent fic, of sorts. finally: it's been too long since i've written fire emblem.
> 
> this is a lot darker than most of my stuff, but i'm hoping it's not bad! unbeta-d as usual, so forgive any lingering mistakes~

They’re quiet. The candles have all been blown out, curtains drawn, bedsheets pulled up. Henry’s arm is draped lazily over Robin’s stomach, playing the big spoon. She can feel his eyelashes blink open against the skin of her neck.

 

Of course he’d notice her breathing change. Of course he would.

 

In the space between the world and nothing, Robin had seen so much. Too much. She saw worlds where Grima didn’t exist, and she was a soulless _einherjar_ , worlds with maps and charts she didn’t recognize. The stars turned into kaleidoscope of bright white stars, hundreds upon hundreds of shining beacons melding into one wormhole ―

 

“I’m falling,” she says suddenly. “Real or not real?”

 

“Not real,” Henry says back. The joking tone she’d grown to associate with him is long gone. “Start from the beginning.”

 

It’s almost strange, really, how the metaphorical tables have turned. Where Robin used to be on the side of talking him through nightmares about man-shaped wolves tearing his body to shreds, now he’s the one reminding her where she is, _who_ she is.

 

“The war is over,” she says. “Real or not real?”

 

“Real.” His breath tickles against her skin.

 

“We’re alive,” she says. “Real or not real?”

 

“Real.”

 

Robin turns over in the bed to meet Henry’s eyes, clasp his hand in hers under the sheets. “Grima will come back.”

 

Henry traces the back of her hand with his thumb. “Not real.” His voice is a whisper.

 

There’s only one thing left to be said.

 

“You love me,” Robin murmurs. “Real or not real?”

 

Henry takes a lock of her hair in his other hand and presses it to his lips. His silence grows in Robin’s ears as he paints portraits on her cheeks with his lips. Finally, he speaks.

 

“Real.”


End file.
